The draft constitution is designed to preserve the power and interests of those who are already on top.

...... Nepal's constitution drafting process stretches back to 2008, and most of the public is desperate to see the job finished. Especially after April's devastating earthquake, the country urgently needs to move on, and one might think that any progress is a good thing. ....... Tragically, the country's political elite - which has cynically misruled the country for decades - is now attempting to ram through an illiberal draft in a "super-fast-track" process, which will reverse many of the rights that Nepali people have gained in recent years. ....... To pull this off, the leaders are taking advantage of the earthquake's aftermath, when many people are less able or willing to object.

The political parties' new-found sense of purpose is grounded in their desire to share access to the billions of dollars of reconstruction aid the country has been promised........ Meanwhile - to "nip any trouble in the bud", as they might suppose - the government has equipped itself with vague emergency powers, and passed an ordinance to give the paramilitary police new powers of arrest, and "discretion" to open fire with impunity.

....... The country has long been governed by a relatively few men from two high caste communities, which taken together constitute only about 30 percent of the population (or 15 percent, not counting the women). .......

The Congress and UML are widely perceived to be 'reluctant federalists'.

....... A book containing 47 separate peace agreements signed between 2005 and 2010 lies on my desk ...... Proponents understandably suspected a plot to postpone federalism indefinitely. After all, they have enough bitter experience by now of how the top leaders evade change. ...... The Supreme Court ruled this provision of the agreement unconstitutional, because the Interim Constitution clearly states that the CA must complete all aspects of the constitution, including federalism. The leaders are pressing on, in defiance of the Court. ........ Nepal's political establishment is fond of preaching democracy and the rule of law, yet in their hands it's a game of "heads I win, tails you lose". ..... The second CA was committed by a binding motion to carry over provisions agreed by the first. Yet the draft constitution has thrown out many of these. There is no space here to detail all the regressive measures that have been inserted: diminishing women's citizenship rights, property rights and reproductive rights; diluting measures supposed to give inclusion to marginalised ethnic and caste groups; offering an opaque electoral system and uneven distribution of parliamentary constituencies; and threatening the freedom of the press. Landlords are served by the abolition of tenants' right against forced eviction. ........... A Supreme Court advocate has written that one article (number 51), which is supposed to guarantee citizens' right to legal remedy, is "the weakest constitutional provision ever made in Nepal's history". Or, according to a political scientist, "a close study of the draft reveals stipulated rights being neutralised in other sections by clever word-plays in which Nepali officialdom excels". ...... Previous agreements, election commitments, and the results of over five years of CA discussions, have been discarded. The draft constitution grants fewer and weaker rights than the Interim Constitution, which has applied during the peace process. It is more or less what one would expect to emerge, when a group of party bosses crowds around a keyboard to hammer out the stitch-up of their dreams. ........ The Maoists and regional parties have lost the game. They are discredited, ground down and defeated. Politicians of all parties are eyeing their share in the coming earthquake reconstruction bonanza. There is little public appetite for these issues. And among Kathmandu's influential bourgeoisie, many are backing the draft. After two weeks of scheduled public consultations, the government wants to promulgate the charter on August 5.

On citizenship, Article 12 (1.b) requires both the father and the mother to be Nepali citizens to be able to pass along the citizenship to their children. If either parent is a non-Nepali citizen, or no longer a Nepali citizenship, it imposes a two-year limitation to acquire a citizenship. This could make a number of children stateless. Further, Article 13 (1) compels non-Nepali husbands to wait 15 years for a citizenship through naturalisation with permanent residence, whereas a non-Nepali wife can get a citizenship immediately after marriage under Article 13 (2). This discriminates against Nepali women as their foreign husbands have to wait for 15 years to get citizenship while the foreign wives of Nepali men do not. ....... Restrictions on the right to freedom contradict the established principles of international law and are regressive when compared to the Interim Constitution. ..... freedom of expression can be curtailed if it is deemed to ‘disrupt’ relations between federal units, is disrespectful to labour, for slander, contempt of court, provocation to commit crime and assisting any foreign state and organisation that could threaten national security. ...... the right to mass communication in Article 24 is a continuation of the provision in the Interim Constitution, but restriction clauses include publication of false materials along with the limitations mentioned in the right to freedom......... in the clause that permits affirmative actions for historically disadvantaged groups, the ‘Khas-Arya’ group is also included. The list of protected groups is, thus, large. Effectively qualifying almost everyone in society to receive special treatment could easily result in the provision being both unachievable and meaningless. ....... Article 25 (2) denies the constitutional right to provide legal counsel to a person who is either in preventive detention or to citizens of enemy states. Further, the ‘24-hour rule’ to present suspects before a competent authority has also been denied to those people. Article 28 argues that people cannot be detained unless there is evidence that they are a threat to sovereignty, territorial integrity and public order. But all these crimes have been proposed to be criminalised in the Criminal Code Bill currently in Legislative Parliament. Therefore the provisions relating to preventive detention and ‘citizens of enemy states’ are redundant and outdated. Further, this section on right to justice completely fails to include the much-demanded right against enforced disappearances. ......... The right to information ..... its restriction clause exempts those ‘things to be maintained secret as provided by the law’ and effectively gives unlimited scope to any subsequent legislation that could put unreasonable restrictions on the right to information. Such restrictions should only be limited to cases of national security, reputation of others and public order and morality. The right against exploitation mentioned in Article 34 (4) states that no one shall be subject to work without his/her interest. But the restrictive clause allows compulsory work for ‘public purpose’ without defining it, giving a wider limit to the legislation and subjecting it to misuse. ...... The right against exile (Article 50) is outdated as no citizen has been expelled in modern-day Nepal. However, given the frequent practice of unlawful and summary deportation of foreign citizens, including asylum seekers, this article should have included ‘persons’ instead of citizens in its scope. ....... Article 51 (2) states that in order to enforce the rights mentioned in this chapter, the state, as necessary, will have to make the laws within three years. This raises concerns that the state could limit all fundamental rights on the basis of laws to be later promulgated by Parliament, effectively diminishing any hope for people to be able to go to courts for remedy. Finally, the chapter on fundamental rights is also missing an interpretive clause declaring that fundamental rights have their origins in and ought to be interpreted according to the international human rights law and comparative jurisprudence that shape these emerging rights.